Tagged: Portland
Son of The Dark Crystal: ‘Lessons Learned’ Brings Back the Magic!
I am thoroughly bummed out that “Lessons Learned“, the short film by Toby Froud somehow slipped through my radar here undetected! Being a huge fan of Both Labyrinth & The Dark Crystal this film is on my must see list and Mr. Froud I find also lives right here in Portland, Oregon! Now that’s not even the most interesting part, Toby is kind of a legendary guy, his parents created the puppets and landscapes of The Dark Crystal & Labyrinth, but get this, he also starred in Labyrinth as the legendary baby that David Bowie kidnaps!!
So these days he lives in Pdx and works on puppets at Laika Studios on movies like Paranorman and the upcoming Box Trolls. Most recently however he’s completed his epic puppet short film, “Lessons Learned”, which was funded on Kickstarter. Now the film is complete and screenings are popping up. The movie looks pretty awesome & it really looks like it takes place in the same universe as The Dark Crystal!
So check out this trailer for the film which he teamed with Heather Henson (Jim Henson’s Daughter)! I think if he could follow this up with a feature length film, in the same vein it would excite legions of people all over the world. Lessons Learned will screen again as part of the Portland Film Festival in August. For those not in Portland, it has been selected as part of FilmQuest in Salt Lake in July, and will possibly play at festivals elsewhere pending acceptance.
It’s Friday The 13th & Jason Voorhees has a Serious Change of Heart!
What a perfect day to share this rad music video by The Menzingers for their song “I Don’t Wanna Be An Asshole Anymore” ! This is a pretty great song and the video is probably one of my faves of all time! Totally brilliant and hilarious concept for a music video by Portland Oregon’s own Whitey Mcconaughy! This seriously puts Jason in a new light and if you’re a Friday the 13th fan you gotta check this shit out!!
This Week’s Comic Book Reviews! Jack Burton Returns….
Here we are with some quick comic book reviews from my haul at the shop this week! If I had a million bucks I’d be reading or testing so many more, but these books add up quickly at 4 bones each! So let’s get started here!
1. Big Trouble in Little China #1, Boom! Studios
I’ve been looking forward to this one for quite a while as we have John Carpenter & Eric “The Goon” Powell writing it together. This one starts off literally right where the movie ends which is a cool thing for die hard fans! Though I enjoyed the issue it’s tone felt a little off from the movie and maybe a little too cartoony for it’s own good. It felt like it was a full on comedy, which isn’t bad but it left me craving a little more adventure and perhaps slightly slower pace to bring us directly back into this sequel. I kinda imagined I was reading the lost story board for the never made second film. The dialogue was pretty fun, I will say I could totally picture Kurt Russell’s voice the entire time I was reading. I’m not a huge fan of the artwork for this issue, it’s not to say Brian Churilla isn’t a great artist, but one thing I enjoyed about the movie so much was the awesome set pieces and most of the time in this issue the backgrounds are simply blank solid colors, which for me feels a bit lazy for something we have waited this long for. This issue is getting a lot of buzz, as I do recommend it I’m not sure yet if this one will keep me on board for the entire ride. I’ll be back for issue #2 though…
Lobster Johnson “Get The Lobster” #4, Dark Horse
What can I really say about Lobster Johnson? If you love movies like Indiana Jones and noir type adventure stories you’ll greatly enjoy this storyline! Issue number 4 is jam packed with more weird ass characters & awesome art by Tonci Zonjic. It even has a cool ass battle that pits the Lobster against a metal armed man & giant Gorilla (who also sports mechanical arms) in a miniature model city. This goes down more like a brawl from a Godzilla movie! Anyway John Arcudi and Mike Mignola keep the bizarre story tightly intact furthering my desire to see Guillermo Del Toro tackle a big screen adaptation of this always excellent title. If you’re not familiar with Lobster Johnson you’re missing out big time!
Amazing X-Men #8 Marvel
Wow I decided to add a Marvel comic to my small load this week! I was particularly X-cited to pick this one up and give it a try as it features my favorite Canucks The Alpha Flight! The five issue arc is called “World War Wendigo” and you know I love me some good Wendigo storys. This one is off to a fine start too as Wolverine travels up to Canada to visit his friend Heather Hudson (also known as Vindicator) to help her track down Guardian (her husband) who disappeared after they got into a possibly relationship ending lover’s quarrel. The two of them suit up and go looking for him, but what they find ends up being and extremely dangerous situation for them both, especially Wolverine who no longer has his healing factor. This one looks and reads great so far, and i’m usually not a big Ed Mcguinness fan. The issue actually kind of reads like a horror movie which is perfect for a Wendigo storyline. I’m hoping the next issue features the rest of the Alpha Flight and generates some interest in the team again-they deserve their own monthly series again by a writer who can match the feel of the classic John Byrne run in the 1980’s!
The Woods #2 Boom! Studios
Here we are with another from Boom! Studios and it’s a good one. Issue number one was one of my favorite debuts in some time. Issue #2 continues the story of the high school that’s been mysteriously teleported & stranded on what appears to be an alien moon! We get a little more to the story as the teens have decided to take matters into their own hands and while the teachers spend most of their time sitting around a table, frightened discussing what their options are. It sets ups a nice teacher vs. student scenario that will be interesting to see unfold now that the kids feel they don’t need to be listening to the adult anymore now that they’re not on earth! Though this issue is not quite as page turning as the stellar first it’s building the story nicely with even more crisp artwork than the previous. There’s also some nice monster moments that I’m certain will make issue number three one not to miss. This one is becoming a favorite of mine quickly-go check this out!
T’was a good week at the Comic book shop! Let me know if there’s any other titles worthy of the 4 bucks a pop drop!!!
Handmade Monsters From Portland Oregon!
I had to take a moment here to share with you a little something awesome I stumbled upon recently! Being a giant fan of anything and everything monsters it was to my surprise to pleasantly find out about Nightmerriment!
Nightmerriment is a one man operation out of Portland Oregon run by Matthew Hopkins. Hopkins is a puppet/monster maker and his creations are incredibly creepy, cute and fierce all at the same time. I guess when I first got a glance of his work I pictured him working in the Jim Henson Workshop, putting together monster puppets for movies like The Dark Crystal or Labyrinth. Self described as monster art somewhere between sculpture and puppetry, his creations look like they could come to life at any moment despite being showcased like taxidermy on wooden mounts.
Most of his creations from what I understand are for sale, so in fact we all could own a little creature of our own! Hipsters aren’t the only thing found in Portland these days, now we’ve finally got something real cool to brag about-hand made Monsters!
Check it out and Nightmerriment’s facebook page and follow his creations!
Whatever Happened to H.E.R.B.I.E. the Robot?!
Well the one good thing about having your own blog is that you can shamelessly hype your own shit! In this day and age of the internet let’s face it, it’s hard to get anyone to help you get the word out there on your own projects. So as you may or may not know, my musical alter ego is Mister Saturday, the first and as far as I know ONLY nerdcore reggae dancehall artist. I’ve been cranking out these ridiculous songs for years now, singing or toasting (as a Jamaican might call it) which is essentially rapping about the kind of stuff I want to hear in a reggae song. Stuff like Star Trek, The Incredible Hulk, Land of the Lost, Three’s Company, Godzilla, D&D and comic books. Basically stuff that you would never hear a reggae artist sing about ever, past or present.
Being a big fan of reggae since I was a kid in the 80’s I decided it was time to make these type of songs myself, whether anyone liked it or not. So, this brings me to my latest song, I wrote over a popular Swedish dancehall riddim about H.E.R.B.I.E. the Robot. I realize most people probably don’t even remember Herbie the Robot, but in the 1970’s he replaced The Human Torch on the animated series!
They actually thought The Human Torch was bad for children because they thought kids might try and light themselves on fire to emulate the character! So we got good ol’ Herbie instead! Well he kinda disappeared after that series, so I decided to find out where he went! Check it!
Don’t Fear The Davis Baby! Just Download it for Free!
I’m taking a moment here to share a new song from my latest musical endeavor The Davis Baby! Yes it’s named after that little mutant monster baby from the 70’s horror flick “It’s Alive”. See back in the mid 90’s I lived in Wisconsin & I played in a pop punk band called Ben Grim, we were inspired by bands like Descendents/ALL, The Doughboys, The Hard-ons ect, we released some records and toured around the US with our best buddies Fun Size (one of the best pop punk bands of the 90’s). It was some of the best times of my life, as Bryan Adams might say. So I decided to put together a group today that sort of brought that old Ben Grim sound back.
We wrote four songs of crunchy old school power pop the way we would have done it back in the Ben Grim days. The project features my former band mate Joel Vega, who sang and played guitar in Ben Grim with me, my old pal Kevin Carl from lates 80’s/90’s band G-Whiz & Jim Wadsworth my good friend/fellow D&D player from Portland, Oregon band Danger Death Ray. We posted a FREE/name your price download of our new song “Laid to Rest”. It’s meant to be free but bandcamp doesn’t just let you list the track as purely “free”. So please no need to pay just download it!
It’s gonna be featured on our upcoming split ep with Higley (Kevin Carl & Duane Kiener of G-Whiz, Kris Roe of The Ataris & Bill Stevenson of Descendents/ALL/Black Flag) out soon on SP Records. The song also features Mark Arnold from Big DRILL Car on guitar. Which we were fully stoked to have play on it as Big DRILL Car remains to this day one of my favorite bands ever!
Download The Davis Baby for FREE here https://thedavisbaby.bandcamp.com/
Like us on Facebook HERE!
I’m trying to get the word out on this project, and it’s tough in this day and age to get anything out there on your own in the vast sea of the internet, so if you like it please help me share the song-maybe we’ll record more or start playing live!
Knights of Badassdom: The Most Bad ASS Movie of 2014?!
I finally saw Knights of Badassdom last night, a movie that I’ve been waiting to be released for years. It first started filming iway back in 2010. So the question remains, was it worth the long, long wait? You Betcha!! I’ll go ahead right now and say that this flick will easily be taking ranks in my top ten list in 2014. It’s really too bad that this one is getting such a limited release theatrically, because it’s better than half the comedies that are coming out these days and it works incredibly well as a horror movie too. When I first checked it out I wasn’t aware of how much the movie truly dabbled in the horror, genre I thought it was pretty much a straight up comedy, so I was pleasantly surprised when the heads started rolling. Luckily I was able to catch it here in Portland, Oregon in the theater. I tried to see twice over the weekend but both times it was sold out. Finally we bough our tickets online! I was determined!
First though let me say the movie has a great cast, Peter Dinklage, Ryan Kwanten, Summer Glau and Steve Zahn who I always love, serve up nonstop laughs from beginning to end. Dinklage has got to be the movie’s main draw and without him I really wouldn’t have enjoyed the movie nearly as much as I did. I almost wonder if they’ve been waiting to release the movie because of how popular Dinklage has gotten in last few years with Game of Thrones and his upcoming role as the main bad guy in X-men: Days of Future Past?
The plot is ridiculously simple, metal head Joe, True blood’s Ryan Kwanten is dumped by his girlfriend and to cheer him up his friends get him ridiculously wasted and bring him along to their weekend LARPing outing. Joe’s a bit resistant until he notices his guild has the incredibly cute Gwen (Summer Glau) playing as well. To get the games started the Wizard of the group played By Steve Zahn chants a spell from a strange mystic book he found on Ebay and somehow awakens a succubus that greatly resembles Joe’s ex. She doesn’t show up til later though and in between we get a full on play by play from Dinklage of how to kick ass in the game of Live Action Role Playing that’s one of the movie’s finest moments as he continues throughout to steal the show.
The fun really begins once the succubus emerges from the shadows of the forest. Suddenly the movie starts feeling more like The Army of Darkness than a straight forward comedy. Something that I really enjoyed was all of the old school special effects. The movie features a little bit of well placed CG but by the end of the movie you’ll be cheering in your seat as the evil succubus becomes seriously a little less than human!
The movie is all out fun, the perfect Saturday night popcorn flick and it also delivers one hell of an ending that’s more than worth waiting for. It’s jam packed with, laughs, action, monsters, heavy metal and plenty of surprises! This one was directed by Joel Lynch who also did the awesome Wrong Turn 2: Dead End. If you see this playing near you check it out, it’s got a limited theatrical run before it’s released on Feb. 11th via VOD. I also hear this version may have been heavily edited so that’s just a little more incentive to check out the DVD when it drops!
Filmage – The Story of DESCENDENTS/ALL: Delivers True Nerd Rage!
I was lucky enough to see the new documentary “Filmage” over the holidays, a movie I felt like I’d waited my whole life to see! Yeah it was that good and it chronicles the story of the legendary pop-punk godfathers the DESCENDENTS / ALL from their start in the late 1970’s. It’s about time that these guys get the recognition they deserve and it seems as if these days they are more popular than they’ve ever been.
If you don’t know who the Descendents are then this is the perfect place to start as Filmage is premiering now all over the USA. But plain and simple The Descendents are the BEST pop punk band of all time. They’ve influenced countless bands and if it it wasn’t for them It be a safe bet to say that a band like Green Day would have never existed. I pretty much sum them up as the ultimate in real teen angst. The true spirit of what it was like to be a nerdy teen with raging hormones. Growing up in the 80’s I loved punk rock but it wasn’t until I heard them the first time that I really found a band that truly spoke to me as a teen.
The Descendents said all of the shit that you were really feeling growing up, something a lot of the punk bands lyrically were maybe too macho to sing about. Yeah they were most definitely not politically correct, at times even sexist, incredibly sappy, often crude and totally immature but at their core just a band of heartbroken nerds with no punk rock image. They covered the spectrum of hardcore punk while at the same time ripping into shameless love songs simultaneously. How many bands can even pull that off today much less back in 1982?!
Well Filmage gives us the full scoop into the minds of these guys, their lives, their struggles and transitioning from the Descendents into the much less popular outfit ALL back in 1987. The movie was made by true Dents fans and it shows by how much care was put into this documentary. Filled with amazing vintage footage of the band, incredibly personal interviews, hilarious animated sequences and interviews with the likes of Dave Grohl, Mike Watt, Mark Hoppus, Keith Morris amongst many others whom cite the band as having a huge influence on them.
It’s funny, sonically awesome and emotional as we follow the struggles of the band members lives up to current times. The movie in the end is really the full story of Bill Stevenson, the bands only constant member throughout Descendents and ALL while also filling us in on his time as drummer for Black Flag from 1982-1985.
It’s his journey as the band leader and all of the friends along the way that helped make his dream a reality. It tells us exactly why the band is finally getting the attention they deserved all these years. While watching it I was almost glad they never hit the big time, as the band always stayed true to their signature sound til this day. We also get a great glimpse into ALL’s struggle to fill the shoes of the bands most valuable musical weapon, Milo Aukerman, the ultimate nerd front man.
I don’t wanna give away to much of the story but I put this up there on the same level as “A Band Called Death” one of the years best rockumentaries. So check this out if you’re jones’n for the full story of the greatest melodic hardcore band of all time-you won’t be disappointed!
Check out the trailer:
The Best Halloween Costume of 2013?! A True Marvel Two in One!
It’s no secret how much I LOVE The Incredible Hulk! So when I saw my friend’s Halloween costume this year my mind was officially blown! She decided that going as The Hulk just wasn’t good enough and decided to go as the 1970’s/80’s Hulk/David Banner split screen two in one combo costume! Yeah, Banner and The Hulk together as one! Check this shit out, she made this by hand and it’s genius-my vote for best Halloween Costume of 2013! Take this one to Comic Ceon Already!
Listen Up Abrams! The FOUR Golden Rules for Star Wars Have Arrived!
Here’s a great little video that hit the web today, simply titled “4 Rules to Make Star Wars Great Again”. Meaning what? That the prequels were BAD?! Yeah…well we don’t need to get into those pesky prequels again. What we have here is a simple guide line with some great animation for Abrams to roll around in his brain from Portland Oregon’s own Sincerely Truman.
Honestly though at this point in the game it certainly doesn’t appear that JJ Abrams is gonna screw anything up, everything I have seen and heard thus far points to the next installment being the opposite of what we got served from the prequels. In fact, so far I am so certain that he’s not only going to do it right but he’s going to exceed us Star Wars fans expectations! But then again, with Hollywood THESE days you just never know! So here are 4 rules along with their official website!
Are these four rules enough? What do you think? I’d say they nailed it but Star Wars was cute back in 1983 Return of the Jedi’s the Ewoks were about as cute as it gets!
Universal Dork 